Good evening, everybody. Let me begin by thanking President Xi and the
people of Hangzhou and China for the hospitality in hosting this G20
summit on the shores of beautiful West Lake. Thank you so much. Xie
xie.

This visit offered the eighth opportunity for President Xi and me to
meet. We agreed to advance our cooperation across a range of issues,
including climate change, global health and development, peacekeeping,
counter-narcotics, and nuclear security. We also addressed our
differences on issues like religious freedom, maritime security, and a
level economic playing field, but we did so in a clear, candid, direct,
and I think constructive way. That has helped us to manage problems,
and itís consistently helped us to improve relations between the United
States and China.

This has also been my tenth and final G20 meeting. It goes by fast.
And so before I take your questions, let me put into context what weíve
done over the course of our G20 meetings.

And I think back to April 2009, when hundreds of thousands of Americans
were losing their jobs and their homes and their savings each month, and
unemployment was on its way to 10 percent. Around the world, for the
first time in a generation, the global economy was contracting, trade
was shrinking, and the international financial system was nearly
frozen. By several key measures, the global economy was on a worse
trajectory than it was at the outset of the Great Depression.

But the size and the scope of the crisis was not what made that London
G20 historic. What made it historic was the speed and magnitude of our
collective response. One nation couldnít solve the problem alone, so
together, developed and developing nations alike, took a comprehensive
and unprecedented set of actions to prevent another depression and set
the stage for recovery.

Most important was to create jobs and growth by stimulating demand
across our economies. And America led the way. By then, in just my
first 10 or so weeks as President, we had already passed the Recovery
Act, set in motion plans to rescue our auto industry, stabilize our
banks, jumpstart loans to small businesses, and launch programs to help
homeowners refinance and stay in their homes. And our G20 partners
would follow with similar actions.

To stabilize the global economy, we rejected the protectionism that
could deepen the crisis. We cooperated to keep markets open and trade
finance flowing, and bolstered the international finance systemís
lending capacity to respond to countries that were hurting the most.
And to prevent future crises, we took steps to reform our financial
regulatory system
-- including the historic Wall Street Reform that we passed more than
six years ago.

These were the actions we took in 2009. They were actions that
prevented another depression, and created conditions for the global
economy to grow by more than 25 percent over the past seven years.

What we also did, though, was to elevate the G20 to become the worldís
premier forum for international economic cooperation. And that decision
allowed us, as the global recovery progressed, to take further actions
to strengthen the global economy. And thatís what we came to Hangzhou
to do.

Weíve had long debates over the years about the best ways to promote
sustained growth. But Americaís voice in the G20 has always been one of
bold action, and that stance has been backed up by our economic
performance. Since job growth turned positive in early 2010, Americaís
businesses have created more than 15 million new jobs. Weíve cut the
unemployment rate in half. And so far this year, wages have risen by
almost 3 percent, which is much faster than the pace of inflation.

But one of the things that we learned through the G20 process is that
more than ever our economies are interconnected and weíve got more work
to do together to keep the global economy growing. We have to do more
to grow wages faster; to shrink inequality faster; to give everybody a
shot at opportunity and security in a changing economy. And that should
be the way forward for the G20 -- to make sure that the benefits of
trends like globalization and technological progress are shared broadly
by more workers and families who still feel like the global economy is
not working for them.

And thatís what we did here at this G20 Summit. We committed to using
all of our policy tools to promote robust, inclusive growth that creates
opportunity for young people and the middle class that theyíre working
to join. We focused on making sure that businesses can compete fairly
and all working families can take advantage of the new prospects the
digital economy creates. And we reaffirmed our commitment to support
emerging economies through an array of development initiatives.

We also discussed ways to unlock the mutual benefits that trade provides
while keeping it fair for our workers and the playing field level for
our businesses. And that includes high-standard trade agreements that
actually benefit the middle class, like the TPP. That includes working
together to abstain from unfair currency practices, and address
corruption and global tax evasion. And it includes our agreement to
establish a new forum to address some of the market-distorting policies
in the global steel sector that have hurt workers and businesses.

We also added momentum to the fight to protect our planet for future
generations. On Saturday, the U.S. and China formally entered the Paris
Agreement. And today, the G20 welcomed efforts to enter the Paris
Agreement into force by the end of this year.

So if thereís anything that the past eight years have taught us, itís
that the complicated challenges of the 21st century cannot be met
without coordinated and collective action. Agreement is not always easy
and results do not always come quickly. Respecting different points of
view; forging consensus instead of dictating terms -- that can sometimes
be frustrating. But it is how progress has been won and how it will be
won in the future. Itís how weíve come as far as we have in the eight
years since the crisis affected us all. And itís how the G20 can make
progress for all people in the years to come.

So, with that, let me take some questions. And I will start with
Roberta Rampton of Reuters.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. I want to ask you about tomorrow, the
next leg of your trip, a little bit. And tomorrow you're going to be
meeting for the first time with President Duterte, and heís a leader
whose war on drugs has led to the death of about 2,400 people in just
the last two months since he took office. And today he said in a very
colorful way that you better not bring this up. And I'm wondering, are
you are committed to raising this with President Duterte? And are you
concerned that meeting him legitimizes his approach on this issue?

President Obama: Well, I just came out of a long day of meetings, so I
just heard about some of this. But I have seen some of those colorful
statements in the past, and so, clearly, heís a colorful guy. And what
Iíve instructed my team to do is to talk to their Philippine
counterparts to find out is this, in fact, a time where we can have some
constructive, productive conversations. Obviously, the Filipino people
are some of our closest friends and allies, and the Philippines is a
treaty ally of ours. But I always want to make sure that if I'm having
a meeting that it's actually productive and we're getting something
done.

We recognize the significant burden that the drug trade plays just not
just in the Philippines, but around the world. And fighting narco-trafficking
is tough. But we will always assert the need to have due process and to
engage in that fight against drugs in a way that's consistent with basic
international norms. And so, undoubtedly, if and when we have a
meeting, that this is something that's going to be brought up, and my
expectation, my hope is, is that it could be dealt with constructively.

But I'll have my team discuss this. I've got a whole bunch of folks
that I'm going to be meeting with over the course of the next several
days. And, as I said, historically, our relationship with the
Philippines is one of our most important, and my relationship with the
Philippine people has been extraordinarily warm and productive. So I
expect that will continue. But I want to make sure that the setting is
right and the timing is right for us to have the best conversation
possible.

Question: So you're not going to meet with him?

President Obama: Well I'm -- no, as I said, I'm going to just make an
assessment. I just got out of these meetings. What is certainly true
is, is that the issues of how we approach fighting crime and drug
trafficking is a serious one for all of us, and we've got to do it the
right way.

Michelle Kosinski.

Question: Thank you. Same subject, I guess, of colorful guys. What can you
tell us about this hour-and-a-half-long meeting you had with President
Putin -- the tone of it, any progress that was made? And do you agree
with him that the relationship between our two countries is now frozen?

On the cyber front, Senator Reid recently cited intelligence briefings
when he was expressing his suspicions that Russia is trying to meddle in
the election and may even have direct ties to one of the campaigns.
What can you tell us? Do you think Russia is trying to influence the
U.S. election through hacking?

President Obama: Well, President Putin is less colorful, but typically
the tone of our meetings are candid, blunt, businesslike --- and this
one was no different. We had a range of issues that we had to discuss,
but the two most important were, as has been reported, discussions that
have been taking place between Secretary Kerry and Russia's Foreign
Minister, Sergey Lavrov, about ways in which we can institute a
meaningful, serious, verifiable Cessation of Hostilities in Syria, and
our capacity to provide some humanitarian relief to families, children,
women who are suffering enormously under the burdens of that war.

As you'll recall, we had initiated a Cessation of Hostilities a while
back. Initially, it did lessen some of the violence, and then slowly it
unwound. And we're back into a situation in which Assad's regime is
bombing with impunity. That, in turn, we think is actually
strengthening the capacity of Nusra to recruit people who might not have
initially been sympathetic to terrorism but now view anyone whoís
fighting against Assad as legitimized. And that is a very dangerous
dynamic.

And so we have had some productive conversations about what a real
Cessation of Hostilities would look like that would allow us both, the
United States and Russia, to focus our attention on common enemies, like
ISIL and Nusra. But given the gaps of trust that exist, that's a tough
negotiation, and we havenít yet closed the gaps in a way where we think
it would actually work. But my instructions to Secretary Kerry, and Mr.
Putin's instructions to Mr. Lavrov was to keep working at it over the
next several days
-- because the faster we can provide some relief to folks on the ground,
the better off we're going to be.

And that, then, is a predicate for us to be able to transition into a
serious conversation about a political solution to this problem that
would involve all the parties that have either directly or indirectly
involved themselves in the Syrian conflict.

We also spent time talking about Ukraine. There is a Minsk agreement
that arose out of the Normandy negotiations between Russia, Ukraine,
France and Germany, but it hasnít been implemented. And I made very
clear that until it is implemented, the United States is not going to
pull down sanctions; that it is important for both sides to try to seize
this opportunity in the coming weeks to finalize an agreement and to
figure out a sequence in which that document is put into effect. And
there was agreement not just between myself and Mr. Putin, but also with
Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande, that that effort should
increase in urgency over the next several weeks.

And so that what was constructive but not conclusive. And we'll have to
see whether we can actually get this done, or whether, in fact,
President Putin -- despite talking about wanting a negotiation and a
solution -- in fact, is comfortable with this constant low-grade
conflict along the Russia-Ukraine border.

And finally, we did talk about cybersecurity, generally. I'm not going
to comment on specific investigations that are still live and active.
But I will tell you that we've had problems with cyber intrusions from
Russia in the past, from other countries in the past. And, look, we're
moving into a new era here where a number of countries have significant
capacities. And, frankly, we got more capacity than anybody both
offensively and defensively. But our goal is not to suddenly, in the
cyber arena, duplicate a cycle of escalation that we saw when it comes
to other arms races in the past, but rather to start instituting some
norms so that everybody is acting responsibly.

We're going to have enough problems in the cyberspace with non-state
actors who are engaging in theft and using the Internet for all kinds of
illicit practices, and protecting our critical infrastructure, and
making sure that our financial systems are sound. And what we cannot do
is have a situation in which suddenly this becomes the Wild, Wild West,
where countries that have significant cyber capacity start engaging in
competition -- unhealthy competition or conflict through these means
when, I think, wisely we've put in place some norms when it comes to
using other weapons.

So that's been a topic of conversation with President Putin as it has
been with other countries. We've started to get some willingness on the
part of a lot of countries around the world, including through our G20
process, to adopt these norms, but we've got to make sure that we're
observing them.

William Wan.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Heading into Laos, what are the main
things you can offer its leaders? And what do you plan to push for in
return? On the offering side, for example, I'm wondering how you view
U.S. responsibility for unexploded ordnance. On the asking side, what
are you pushing for most? Is it human rights? Closer U.S. ties in the
face of China? Improving their problems with governance and corruption?
What's the priority?

President Obama: Well, look, symbolically, it is important. I'll be the
first U.S. President to visit Laos. And when you think about the
history of the United States and Laos, I think itís useful to see whatís
happened in the evolution of our relationship with Vietnam, a country
that I just visited recently.

At the outset, as weíre trying to build trust, a lot of work can be done
around war legacy issues. For the Lao, that involves dealing with
unexploded ordnance, which is still plaguing big chunks of the
countryside. And since Laos is still a relatively poor country that is
developing, their capacity alone to clean that up is hampered by a lack
of resources. We should help. And my expectation is, is that, in our
meetings over the course of several days, that weíll be able to provide
some really concrete assistance that ensures that innocent kids who are
running through a field, or a farmer thatís trying to clear a field, or
a business thatís trying to get set up -- that theyíre not endangered by
the possibility of an explosion.

Likewise, we have deep commitments to accounting for those who were lost
during that war. And as was true with Vietnam, to the extent that weíre
able to find out more about our missing-in-action and our POWs, that not
only provides enormous comfort and meaning for families and is
consistent with our traditions, but it also ends up being a show of good
faith on the part of the country, and a way for us to move into a next
phase of a relationship.

And so a lot of the conversation I think will start there, but it
doesnít end there. Weíve had an initiative, for example, helping all
the countries along the Mekong Delta to find ways to harness development
and deal with environmental issues. And thatís something that weíve
been doing through ASEAN over the course of several years now. For us
to be able to expand some of that work I think would be important.
Establishing people-to-people exchanges is another area that
historically has been important.

I do think Laos -- seeing the enormous economic progress that Vietnam
and China and others have made, are going to be very interested in
finding ways in which they can advance into the global economy and help
themselves grow, and I think that we can be a useful partner there.

So I think there will be a broad-based agenda. But if you think about
the visit I made to Ho Chi Minh City, and driving through those streets,
and the enormous wellspring of goodwill that you saw -- that started
with some of the same kinds of steps that weíre going to be taking with
Laos. But I think we can hopefully do it faster, make more progress
faster than we did over the course of 10, 15 years, because weíve
learned some things. And I think Laos is very eager to engage with us,
and weíre eager to engage with them.

So I look forward to visiting what I hear is a beautiful country.

Christi Parsons.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. On the Transpacific Partnership, how do
you plan to sell this to these Asian leaders who still have work to do
in their own countries, and with some political -- you know, itís not --
the politics arenít easy, and maybe they donít want to do that. So much
of it seems like the future is rocky in the U.S. Can you -- the U.S.
usually ratifies its trade deals. Do you plan to convey a sense of
inevitability? Do you feel that for the lame duck session, even if it
doesnít happen then, do you feel like itís inevitable anyway?

And, if I may, I wonder what you think about the silent protest of Colin
Kaepernick? And I also wonder what you think about the public response
to it, which is really divided. I mean, some police donít want to
secure Ď49ers games, and many fans feel that heís giving voice to
something they feel strongly. So I just wonder how you look at that.

President Obama: Well, with respect to TPP, I donít have to sell it to
Asian leaders here who were part of the negotiations because they see
this as the right thing to do for their own countries. And when you
look at the architecture, the structure of TPP, what it does is open up
new markets for us that are generally closed. Our markets are more open
than theirs for the most part, so we benefit from a reduction in tariffs
and taxes that are already in place.

But for many of them, what they benefit from is this trade deal is the
spur, the incentive for them to engage in a whole bunch of structural
reforms that they know, over the long term, will reinvigorate their
economy.

So, for example, Prime Minister Abe of Japan, yes, heís having to make
some difficult decisions about opening up markets that previously have
been closed, but heís also looking at a couple of decades of stagnation
and anemic growth. And what he said to the Japanese people is, if we
want to break out of this, then weíre going to have to change how we do
business, and this provides us a road map of how we can become more
competitive on the world stage.

Vietnam, that, for the first time, is debating in a very serious way how
they can provide protections to their workers and allow them to
participate and have voice and bargain for wages, and, yeah, thatís
tough politically for Vietnam. On the other hand, they recognize that
if they want to move up the value chain in the global market that
theyíve got to start abiding by basic norms.

So the good news is theyíre ready to go. And what Iíll be telling them
is that the United States has never had a smooth, uncontroversial path
to ratifying trade deals, but they eventually get done. And itís my
intention to get this one done, because, on the merits, it is smart for
America to do it. And I have yet to hear a persuasive argument from the
left or the right as to why we wouldnít want to create a trade framework
that raises labor standards, raising environmental standards, protects
intellectual property, levels the playing field for U.S. businesses,
brings down tariffs.

It is indisputable that it would create a better deal for us than the
status quo. Nobody has been able to describe to me -- with all the
general criticism of trade that you hear coming out of some quarters,
nobody is able to describe to me how this would not be a significant
improvement for U.S. workers and U.S. businesses going forward compared
to the status quo.

And so I intend to be making that argument. I will have to be less
persuasive here because most people already understand that. Back home,
we'll have to cut through the noise once election season is over. It's
always a little noisy there.

And in terms of Mr. Kaepernick, I got to confess that I havenít been
thinking about football while I've been over here, and I havenít been
following this closely. But my understanding, at least, is, is that
he's exercising his constitutional right to make a statement. I think
there's a long history of sports figures doing so. I think there are a
lot of ways you can do it. As a general matter, when it comes to the
flag and the National Anthem, and the meaning that that holds for our
men and women in uniform and those who fought for us, that is a tough
thing for them to get past to then hear what his deeper concerns are.
But I donít doubt his sincerity, based on what I've heard. I think he
cares about some real, legitimate issues that have to be talked about.
And if nothing else, what he's done is he's generated more conversation
around some topics that need to be talked about.

So, again, I havenít been paying close attention to it, but you've heard
me talk about in the past the need for us to have an active citizenry.
Sometimes that's messy and controversial, and it gets people angry and
frustrated. But I'd rather have young people who are engaged in the
argument and trying to think through how they can be part of our
democratic process than people who are just sitting on the sidelines and
not paying attention at all.

And my suspicion is, is that over time he's going to refine how he's
thinking about it, and maybe some of his critics will start seeing that
he has a point around certain concerns about justice and equality. And
that's how we move forward. Sometimes it's messy, but it's the way
democracy works.

All right, last one. Angela Greiling Keane of Bloomberg.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. The G20 group today discussed the
importance of tax fairness and consistency among countries. For you,
how much of that discussion was centered on the Apple case and the EU's
decision? And how do you balance your efforts here to ensure global tax
fairness with your need and desire to protect U.S. companies and their
shareholders? And if I may, on one other business topic, how would you
assess the likelihood of the actions taken on steel today of making a
difference in overcapacity?

President Obama: Those are both great questions. This issue of tax
avoidance and tax evasion is something that we have actively promoted as
an issue for the G20 to tackle. We've worked with not only the G20
countries, but also some of the multilateral organizations, like the
OECD, to refine how we can approach these problems. It's a complicated
piece of business.

We did not bring up the specific case of Apple, because as a general
rule, I donít want to bring up a single case in a forum like this where
we're trying to shape broader policy. But at home, we have been focused
-- whether it's on the inversion rules that we put forward, the
proposals that we put forward to define who the beneficiaries are behind
the veil so that we can catch people who are avoiding their taxes --
we're doing a bunch of stuff at home, and we want to coordinate better
norms internationally.

The one thing that we have to make sure we do is to move in concert with
other countries, because there's always a danger that if one of us acts
unilaterally, that it's not just amatter of a U.S. company being
impacted, but it may also have an effect in terms of our ability to
collect taxes from that same company. And so you might end up with a
situation where they pay into Europe, and the U.S. Treasury is
shortchanged. So if there is not some coordination between various tax
authorities, you get a problem there.

In the same way, we think there has to be some coordination about even
some of our closest allies racing to the bottom in terms of how they
enforce their tax policies in ways that lead to revenue-shifting and tax
avoidance in our country.

So this is not something that I think is going to be sorted out
overnight. I do think that if we are to regain the trust of ordinary
people but the system is not rigged, and deal with these trends of
inequality that have risen out of globalization and technological
change, that we've got to make sure we tackle this issue in an effective
way.

And we've made some progress, but not as much as we need to. And my hope
is, is that it's recognized that it's in the interest of all countries
-- whether they're developed countries or developing countries -- to
work together to put a stop to this. Because developed countries are
losing revenue, and that erodes their tax base and their ability to
educate kids and build universities and build infrastructure, but it
also wallops developing countries because oftentimes tax avoidance can
go hand in hand with corrupt practices that impede development.

In terms of excess capacity, this is an issue that we wanted to get on
the agenda. We got it on the agenda. In my bilateral conversations
with President Xi, there was an agreement that we would make progress on
dealing with steel overcapacity -- which, by the way, is consistent with
the plans that President Xi himself has had to reorient the economy so
that it's not so heavily dependent on state-owned enterprises and an
export model.

So, weíve made some progress -- not as much as we'd like to see -- but
some progress on that front bilaterally. Multilaterally, the way this
was resolved was the G20 agreed to put together an intensive process of
gathering all the data, determining what the best steps are, which will
then be reported in the G20 in Hamburg next year. And I think there was
a validation of the basic principle that, to the extent that
overcapacity is the result not just of market forces but specific policy
decisions that are distorting a well-functioning market, that that needs
to be fixed.

And so it was one of a number of examples that arenít always sexy and
donít attract a lot of headlines of where issues that we've raised in
the G20 get adopted and then a bunch of work gets done, and the
following year you start seeing action, and slowly we strengthen and
build up international norms.

If you look at the issue of IT and the digital economy, we were able to
get the G20 to adopt a range of principles about an open Internet, net
neutrality, making sure that businesses and vendors and providers arenít
discriminated across borders, reflecting a lot of the foundational
principles that have led to this digital revolution over the last
several years.

And that will, in turn, generate a bunch of new work. And there will
still be conflicts about how people deal with censorship or how they
deal with cybersecurity issues, but we chip away at it, and over time
what you get it sturdier international norms that everybody abides to
and will help all countries grow and help people prosper.

So my parting words at the G20 were, having watched this process over
the last eight years, I think we all have to recognize these are
turbulent times. A lot of countries are seeing volatile politics.
Sometimes you read the headlines and you can get discouraged about
whether the international community and leadership are able to shape
solutions fast enough for the scale of the problems -- whether it's
migrants and refugees, or climate change, or terrorism, or making sure
the international economy is working for everybody. But then when you
look back over the course of eight years, actually you find out things
have gotten better -- not always as fast as we'd like, but in
significant ways.

You look at the progress we've made on the financial system. The
American banking system now has 700 billion dollars more in capital; it
is much safer and much sturdier. But it's not just us. Because of the
G20, you also have a Basel III agreement in which all countries are
having to strengthen their capital requirements and put in place some
basic safeguards to prevent what happened at Lehmans. And that's true
across the board.

So, as always, Iíd always like to see even more get done, but Iím
cautiously optimistic about the progress that we made. I tell my staff
when they feel worn out sometimes that better is always good. It may
not be everything that needs to get done, but if it's better than before
we started, we'll take it.